Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Goldmoon627]

Is is possible to remove the floor of a z-level if the z-level below it is already mined out?

[Greiger]

Just channel from the above floor as normal.  It will make a hole instead of a ramp if there is no place underneath to put the ramp bottom.

Be careful you designate a little accessible chunk at a time though.  Dwarves are not smart, and if you designate a huge big area all at once you'll get areas that werent properly dug out and are now unaccessible at best, and inordinately deadly to everybody within 10 tiles of the hole caveins punching a hole straight through the entire fortress sucking dwarves into the hole at worst.  Because they will dig out the tiles in whatever order they feel like with no regard to common sense, survival, or gravity.

[Yaotzin]

Hunt a few elephants, get 5000 prepared meals...eish.

[Yaotzin]

Is it pretty simple to dig straight down to the magma right at the start? Just gotta dodge/wall up the caverns?

I want to make a very dwarfy city at the bottom of the world.

Oh and: If I have a stairway - say 5 levels for a cistern - how do I remove the stairs from the top without trapping dwarves down below?

[Niccolo]

Is it pretty simple to dig straight down to the magma right at the start? Just gotta dodge/wall up the caverns?

I want to make a very dwarfy city at the bottom of the world.

Oh and: If I have a stairway - say 5 levels for a cistern - how do I remove the stairs from the top without trapping dwarves down below?

First question: Yes, yes it is. Just dig in an approximately 'down' direction and you'll hit magma sooner or later.

and to your second question:

The best way to remove stairs is with a Dwarven Bunker Buster - from a couple of Z-levels above the staircase in question, collapse a piece of natural stone. Staircases don't stop stone.

[rephikul]

The best way to remove stairs is with a Dwarven Bunker Buster - from a couple of Z-levels above the staircase in question, collapse a piece of natural stone. Staircases don't stop stone.

even carved starcases?

[Niccolo]

The best way to remove stairs is with a Dwarven Bunker Buster - from a couple of Z-levels above the staircase in question, collapse a piece of natural stone. Staircases don't stop stone.

even carved starcases?

Okay, you know, my information in that regard might have been wrong. I could have sworn I read about it on the wiki, but now I can't find it.

Yeah, ignore my advice. Or test it.

[Yaotzin]

How do I wall my staircase in the caverns when it refuses to wall diagonals?

eta oh I needed to wall underneath first.

[rephikul]

wall diagonals section first, duh. The best one to wall last is the one at 3 o clock, after you have designated then suspended some walls to its right to force the worker to work from the left which's the safe side.

[Yaotzin]

wall diagonals section first, duh. The best one to wall last is the one at 3 o clock, after you have designated then suspended some walls to its right to force the worker to work from the left which's the safe side.

I meant on a staircase in air :> I forgot they need support eheh. I've also never walled in anything really so I had to look up about suspending them and such.

Warm rock! Time to find out how quickly magma kills me.

I thought there were 3 caverns? Did I just miss one?

[Yaotzin]

Lost a miner already 

I guess the mine and run method doesn't work in magma!

[rhesusmacabre]

As soon as your miner starts digging out that final tile, pause the game and designate some other tiles to be dug out safely elsewhere, then unpause. If your miner has somewhere else to go, they are more likely to move out of harm's way.

I thought there were 3 caverns? Did I just miss one?

It's fairly common to dig straight down and miss them. Just keep searching.

[Farmerbob]

Lost a miner already 

I guess the mine and run method doesn't work in magma!

two ways to possibly prevent loss of a good miner.

1) use an engraver and create a fortification, rather then mining through the wall.

2) dig a trench in front of the punch through spot, and bridge across the trench to give your dwarf a spot to work from.  Even a 1 tile wide trench will help a lot.

In both cases you should make sure the dwarf in question has something to do so they don't loiter.

[billybobfred]

Is it pretty simple to dig straight down to the magma right at the start? Just gotta dodge/wall up the caverns?

Pretty simple, yeah. The hardest part is that sometimes you miss the magma sea, and manage to tunnel straight down to SMR.

Then you have to figure out how to find and access the magma without accidentally incinerating your legendary miners.

[Yaotzin]

Lost a miner already 

I guess the mine and run method doesn't work in magma!

two ways to possibly prevent loss of a good miner.

1) use an engraver and create a fortification, rather then mining through the wall.

2) dig a trench in front of the punch through spot, and bridge across the trench to give your dwarf a spot to work from.  Even a 1 tile wide trench will help a lot.

In both cases you should make sure the dwarf in question has something to do so they don't loiter.

1) Does magma take longer to go through a fortification than onto an empty tile? Otherwise what's the difference?

2) Does magma/water drop down from a bridge tile? Otherwise I don't understand what this means.

I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be a "working safely with magma" article on the wiki.

I never quite realised how few rocks are actually magma safe...

Oh BTW, is magma actually infinite? I ask because after breaking a few rocks the lava stopped being 7/7 everywhere and didn't seem to come back either.